Today I was given the rare gift of insight into how I am perceived in business – at least by one person. Most of the time, it’s only through a mechanism like 360-degree feedback that we gain these insights. It’s not often that you get the gift of honest face-to-face feedback, mainly because it’s rare to find someone who is open and direct enough to do so.  But whichever way it comes, using it to improve your business performance is the real key to getting value from it.

The feedback I got made it absolutely clear that the impression received over the telephone was very different from the experience of meeting face to face. The personal presence is clearly a much stronger way to build a real sense of confidence in our abilities. This may seem blindingly obvious, but for some people, the opposite might apply. We all have different ways of communicating and for some people, their written or verbal presence is stronger than their physical presence. It may just come down to body language, but whatever the reasons, we all come over in our own particular way in each of the communication channels available to us.

Today’s nugget of information is hugely valuable feedback. It’s not a surprise. I’ve been given this message before, in different ways. It’s also not a negative. Just a useful reminder for when I’m handling my initial dealings with people. Note to self: make sure to get a meeting in early in the process.It is because it is so unusual to get this sort of constructive and candid feedback on our performance that 360-degree feedback is so valuable. Under normal circumstances, how else would I have received this fantastically useful insight?

With this information (or the reminder of it, since I had already had a clue or two to it in the past), I can now ensure I use my strengths to develop better business relationships. The underlying message is clear and I now know how to handle new encounters to get the best results. This just reminded me once again, how much value you can get from 360-degree feedback – if you take action on the insights it delivers.

Alchemy for Managers Weekly Tip – guest post from Paul Matthews.

Last week I went to a hand car wash that had recently opened nearby. My car was pounced on by seven people and literally within minutes
it emerged clean and sparkling. I was impressed.

The team boss was watching, and he gestured to one of the men to re-polish the back bumper. I could not see a mark on it, but he wanted it
redone. Now I was VERY impressed!

I happily parted with my money and drove away thinking that I really had to tell people about
this car wash.

Don’t ask your customers, either internal or external, if they are satisfied. That is not enough. Ask them if they would recommend you, and hope you get a response like ‘definitely’,  ‘without hesitation’, ‘absolutely’.

If you don’t get that response, what do you need to do differently?

Remember, it is the customer’s perception that counts. There may not have been a speck of dirt on my car bumper, but that little act had a big
impact on my perception.

Listen to your customers

Alchemy for Managers Weekly Tip – guest post from Paul Matthews.

People look for two main things with respect to being satisfied in their job.

One – do they feel connected to the vision and to others who will help make it a reality?

And two – do they feel that their management values their contribution?

Managers who focus on enabling their people to feel connected and valued will have higher performing teams.

How can you help your team get connected to your vision? (You do have one, don’t you?)

How can you help your team get more connected to each other?

How can you show your team that they are valued by you, and by your organisation?

This should be an ongoing process throughout the year, but doing appraisals is when you can do this in a more formal way. Large numbers of managers report that performance appraisal is the management job they dislike the most, so follow the link below to learn how to make your appraisals work for you.

Appraisals

This post could equally be called, “How a random comment on Facebook help me increase my reading productivity by 100%”

At the beginning of January I realised that a disproportionate amount of my Christmas break had been spent catching up on work reading – and the pile of books was still quite daunting.

Now to be fair, this is partly my own doing. I am a book-junkie. Amazon just loves customers like me. I can’t resist buying new books and I order them at a pace that, at times, is significantly faster than my ability to read them.
So, I’m left with a choice – stop getting new books to read, or find a way to get the information into my brain faster. Hmmm, breaking the book habit is a tough one – and one I’m not sure I want to do away with, to be frank. I’m one of those people who thinks that books are treasures and everyone should have access to them as much as possible.

My comment on Facebook was a random thought that I might have to learn speed reading just to get through the material I had piled up. As if by magic, Noel Gray popped a comment on my wall saying that he could show me how it’s done.

And he did.

In a remarkably short space of time (only a couple of hours in fact), Noel taught me the technique that took my reading from a very average 330 words a minute to 520 words a minute. With diligent practice of only 5 – 10 minutes a day, that increased quite soon to just over 600 words a minutes.

Noel’s approach is to get you started straight away. This is a great approach – real benefits in real-time. What makes him different is that he also approaches the subject from a strategic angle; looking at why you’re reading and what you want to get out of it. It doesn’t really make sense to deal with all reading the same way, and yet we do. Reading for pleasure has a different purpose to reading for work. So, why not handle them differently?

If you want all the bells and whistles, Noel can also provide some valuable insights into report writing that will make the process faster, more effective and easier for the recipient to absorb.

So in terms of immediate practical results, what did I gain? A book I was finding a bit hard going had stalled on my desk. I chose to use that as my practice text and in short order, it was finished, summarised and the next one started. Speed reading through it did the job.

I’m far more positive about getting through piles of reading now, given that I know I can do it in half the time. Of course, that will be dependent on my not giving in and buying even more from Amazon…

Noel Gray speeds his way through reading material at kNOELedge.com

Photo credit

The debate continues. Should 360 feedback include numbers, graphs and text responses?

Current discussions online seem to indicate that numeric and graphic elements in 360-degree feedback reports are going out of fashion. Text-based feedback is in vogue. This may simply be that many 360 feedback systems didn’t provide much focus on text until relatively recently. However, the value in numeric and graphic information representation remains high.

To me, it’s always seemed blindingly obvious that removing any one of those three elements is simply going to reduce the capacity of the report to improve awareness for some recipients.

Last week I had the experience of viewing a 360-degree feedback report which was purely and simply a compilation of descriptive words and comments posted by reviewers. I was left thinking, ’so what?’ It’s very difficult to draw sensible conclusions from e dispersed and diverse group of comments. The value of numeric data is that it provides an underlying structure.

I see the roles of numbers and text in 360-degree feedback as being different, but complimentary. The number provide a framwork – a sort of scaffolding of awareness. Once this is in place, rich text-based feedback can really deliver depth of understanding of a candidate’s performance. But without the scaffolding, comments and descriptive words alone can be plain confusing – rather like trying to navigate cross country without a map or any road signs. With these tools, it’s a straightforward process. Without them, you’ll get there in the end but the journey is likely to be a log rambling route.

It’s well-known that we all have a favoured mode of learning. For some it’s graphic, for others, numeric,  and then there are those who absorb information most easily through the written word.  What is the sense in removing one or more of these elements?

Feedback from our clients confirms that the most effective reports have a good balance of all data types. By balance, I don’t necessarily mean that there should be an equal proportion of each. To be most effective, a 360 feedback solution should take into account the organisation in which it will be delivered. What sort of people tend to work there? Are they technical or artistic, highly numerate, or extremely articulate?

360 feedback for a publishing company, arts foundation, or media provider? Ensure there is a high degree of text based feedback to enable people to express themselves in freeform.

Creating a system for software developers, engineers, or actuaries? Taking out all the numeric elements will make the report appear less valid and cause some recipients to question the source more than they would if they were assimilating graphs and tables.

As with so many things, ensuring the solution is the best fit for the organisation is the first step in making sure they get the best out of the inventment of time and effort in 360-degree feedback.

Alchemy for Managers Weekly Tip – guest post from Paul Matthews.

Many of the ideas of management grew out of the latter stages of the industrial revolution where there was careful measurement and specification of results. Tasks were standardised and managers saw their job as correcting people who didn’t follow the rules and procedures.

Our legacy today of this old management style is a legion of managers who think their job is catching people doing something wrong.

For better performance in today’s world, it has been proven time and again that you will get far better results by catching somebody doing something right and then rewarding them, perhaps just with a word of appreciation. Think of how you would react to this.

So how and who can you catch doing something right?

And how could you give them a simple reward when you do?

Performance management toolkit

Dave Hall, CEO of HFL Sports Science, reflects on his experience of the Highlands Ability Battery and the ‘Aha!’ moment it unveiled:

The HAB experience is an intense one – challenging the complete set of faculties to expose natural tendencies within operational, interpersonal and management styles.  Familiar already with many (more simplistic) psychometric testing regimes and therefore with modest personal expectations, I found the results of the HAB were totally comprehensive – and somewhat surprising.

Of particular note, I had always considered that my natural learning style was visual; combined with a low attention span and an even lower boredom threshold, my listening skills in particular were poor – in both work and family environments.  I routinely finish people’s sentences, and struggle with long-winded explanations – switching off, thereby generating and escalating mutual frustration.

However, the HAB analysis challenged my beliefs in this area, suggesting a very high level of aural performance.  Discussion with the HAB facilitator was most helpful, suggesting that I should explore this attribute in more detail – otherwise neglecting an intrinsic asset.  At a tactical level, we explored the use of multi-tasking – undertaking low level  (and non-distracting) activity whilst actively listening.  For example – sorting papers whilst listening to a business issue from a colleague, or loading the dishwasher whilst listening to the unfolding events of my wife’s day.  HAB’s suggestion that my listening skills were not at all poor has been backed up in practice.

In a strange way, I have developed an extra sense!

Alchemy for Managers Weekly Tip – guest post from Paul Matthews.

We love to give advice.

It makes us feel good. The passing of knowledge and experience to others in our ’tribe’ to help them survive is built into us by natural selection.

The danger comes when we advise others to act as we want them to act for our own reasons, and not theirs.

When you are about to give advice, consider who it will benefit; you, or them. And be honest with yourself about this. Are you really trying to help, or are you just trying to make them into a ‘clone’ of yourself?

Mentoring is about helping someone release THEIR potential in THEIR situation.

[Guest post by Ian Price. Ian writes on the Grimsdyke Consulting blog where he helps people deal with the ever increasing problem of information overload.]

In our efforts to achieve work-life balance, we all accept a bit of work bleeding into our non-work lives. But how does this vary with seniority?

An article in the December 2009 issue of the American Sociological Review by Scott Schieman, Paul Glavin and Melissa Milkie analyses research conducted on US workers to establish the relationship between the extent of bleed of work into non-work life and the circumstances of the worker. They have found a “paradox” that has been apparent for some time i.e. that the more senior you are, the greater the bleed, in spite of also having greater control over a number of aspects of work. They coin the expression “the stress of higher status”.

The definitions of status are pretty soft and include social indicators such as having a degree so the organisational indicators you might hope for are not there. Also, the data is from 2005. However, it is good to see this issue quantified.

I am not sure how you could research it but my suspicion is that this level of “stress” is self-inflicted – the more senior we are, the more likely we are to work at all hours because, now that most other indicators of seniority have evaporated, we have come to equate activity with status. What does this mean for work-life balance, resilience, stress and the signals it sends out to others in the organization? If you don’t agree, seat yourself in the business lounge at any airport and watch…

Picture credit: Cambodia4kids

Alchemy for Managers Weekly Tip – guest post from Paul Matthews.

Look around you at some of the amazing things people have done. Every one of them started with an idea, a thought.
So if you want to achieve anything, you need that thought first. Your chain of thoughts will evolve, but it must start somewhere, no matter how small. I am sure the founders of Facebook, when it started, didn’t imagine it as it is today.

As your thoughts grow, so they will lead to choices and actions. As your actions grow, they will get results.

And it all started with an idea, so notice the ideas you have. As a manager, notice the ideas from your team.
Ideas that grow become a vision for the future. If you value your future, then make sure it is full of your ideas.

Creating a vision

Alchemy for Managers started with an idea. Then the idea was shared. This attracted ideas form many other people, and Alchemy grew into such a compelling vision that itjust HAD to be acted on.

And the Alchemy vision still grows. There is so much more that can, and will be done. Exciting times!